Social media exploded last week when the president of North Korea out-Englished our president by tagging him as a DOTARD (dō-tərd). Name-calling is a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief. In Paul Graham’s “Hierarchy of Disagreement”, he lists Name-Calling as the lowest type of argument in a disagreement, even behind Ad Hominem (attack on an opponent’s character). What clever or archaic name-calling have you heard, used or remember from school, work, family or politics? Describe the effect of name-calling in your experience.

Question of the Night:

Ephesians 4:29 ~Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

When do hurtful words evolve into corrupt acts?
Do you consider laughter the distinction between hurtful hostility and harmless humor in sarcasm?
Which is more important to you in debate, intelligent thought or tactical intent?

Other Questions:

Last year, before the election, a solitary NFL footballer, Colin Kaepernick, took to one knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality against black Americans. He is currently unemployed. Last week, our president said players who kneel during the anthem should be “fired” immediately. This past weekend, twenty-seven players from two NFL teams dropped down and took a knee on the field as “The Star-Spangled Banner” began. No white players took a knee. A journalist remarked, “The kneel will now become a sign of opposition to Trump.” Is the formula for protest always a matter of growing numbers over exploited time? Has last year’s “kneeler” lost his job and his social point (racist police brutality) to the now winning political stand of opposing Trump?

On this day in 1950, United Nations troops recaptured Seoul from North Korean forces. However, China’s support enabled North Korea to fight the “police action” to an armistice and the two communist countries’ mutuality remains strong to this day. Why? -> The North Koreans had provided great support in the previous Chinese Civil War between the Communists and the Nationalists. They say Americans never learned history and their enemies and allies can’t forget it. How important is history in understanding current events? When has Nationalism been a result of selective forgetting? Should history gain more emphasis in our schools?

In 1900, the War of the Golden Stool began in west Africa when the ruling British governor disrespected the local people by sitting on their Sacred Golden Stool. Do you have “sacred” possessions or traditions in your house which when abridged make you fighting mad (or at least piqued)?

P.G. Wodehouse (creator of the fictional character Jeeves) ~ It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. How do you score apology as an advancer or detractor in relationships?

Robin Bates ~ Work can ennoble, but not when we sacrifice our humanity to it. Robin reached this conclusion after reading Rhina P. Espaillat’s poem Find Work which includes the lines…

[Her life]…spent in the lifelong practice of despair.her country tongue and country heart anaesthetized and mute with labor. Have you found your labors at once economically sufficient but painfully self-sacrificial?

Albert Speer Jr. sought to differentiate himself from his father, Hitler’s architect and armaments minister (aka the devil’s architect) in order to overcome his father’s legacy.

Architects glorify regimes and heroes through monuments and so this proclivity exhibited itself from Nazi Germany forward into today’s Communist China. The Dictator of the Elder frightened the world; the father of the Younger frightened his children. Hitler’s demeanor enchanted both father and son; the former seeing Adolf as a hero and friend while the latter saw the leader of the Third Reich as a kindly uncle with dogs and sweets.

Albert Speer Jr. sought to disassemble his legacy and it became manifested in the innovative stadiums he designed which when disassembled, found resurrection from one regime to the next.

Sarcasm disguises hostility as humor: a smiling, put down jerk, cutting and hurting his victim.

Sarcasm heightens the perpetrator’s own underlying hostility, while ceasing it brings happiness to self and victims.

One can use sarcasm sparingly to spice up conversation with humor but when overdone it creates emotional bitterness in the recipient.

One creates wit intelligently with cleverness and consideration, ending in appreciation; while one who composes sarcasm simply with anger, criticism, meanness, humorlessness and talentless, ends in bitterness.

In summary, sarcasm hurts because it disguises hostility as humor, while wit hurts none because it delivers undisguised and harmless humor.

Here are your words to shield against sarcasm…

I don’t appreciate your comments because they are veiled hostility and unacceptable bullying.

The leaves of the trees fall and whither and die. Not so with fallen people. Some people fall and whither but fight not to die. Without assistance and little sustenance, one can rise by will from the ashes. A public past refuses to be forgotten, but a fortified will must needs overcome that refusal and that past. While belief in redemption needs each us to participate, belief in oneself to redeem thyself remains the most important factor. Perfect fruit can die on the vine if caretakers neglect it. That fruit may serve its purpose if responsible people simply serve their calling. The fruit serves only then its purpose. If fate somehow provides manna for the fallen in the form of abundant grace, then sweet be the results. One who has fallen can never satisfy the relentless critiques. Fear of being associated with controversy lurks enough to dampen soft support.

Early crimes against the fallen hardly count for anything. Incessant abuse further corrupts the tender corrupted. That horror begets horror should not horrify those who witness. Where do the sentiments which raise the living dead to life originate? Where does commitment to right wrongs which can never be righted seed and grow? Where those sentiments come from remains a mystery, but the steps to achievement are simple. One step then another, and endless and eternal and undeterred. Examine where one is presently. Find others who have been there and what happened to them. Accept that what is present is also past. Express it. Rewards sit invisible at the end of blind journeys in faith. The alone find company and competition. One adjusts solely by self and will. Judgements remain, but they must remain in the past. Punishment, it its purest form, lies in itself. If publicly served, guilt already recorded must be let go by all.

A fresh start. Courage. A second chance. Each of these may manifest in supporters, but must emerge from the fallen. None deserve anything from life, yet life serves pain and its opposite to each every day. Let past pain be future strength. Being an eyewitness to life’s pitfalls provides a foot path out of them. Honest and full narration means much to investors, but most to the scrutinized. Others may hijack a career, but they cannot derail the dream. Don’t make a crime a focus, make it a fulcrum. Realize the dark place people place the fallen and don’t forget it either. Stay interest in the world and be cosmically connected. Coming to means awakening to a world that was always there but that has changed its accoutrements. Adapt and take the steps. Expect curiosity. Expect to have to prove. Teach them resourcefulness is strength and nothing will ever be taken for granted. Presumptions and underestimates lay before. Experience and exceptional await.

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with the indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
–Stanley Kubrick

Voting faith in Government

rigged election

Voting as a responsibility

Waste

Third Party

The electoral map really was rigged by Republicans after the 2010 census.

A restriction-less 2010 poll set up by Faxo.com to pick a destination for Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour saw North Korea steal the top spot…

A Facebook poll launched in the summer of 2012 to sponsor a Pitbull concert at the Walmart franchise sent Pitbull to the most remote Walmart store in the U.S Kodiak, Alaska.

Can poll results affect beliefs

Jason Kandor TV ad

Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Jason Kander released a television ad last month in which he put an AR-15 assault rifle together blindfolded while reciting a script about gun rights. Mr. Kander’s poll numbers soared IMMEDIATELY. Have you ever changed your opinion due to a stunt? Are your beliefs based on first impressions or lasting principles?

Can one’s ability change your beliefs

AT&T wants to merge with Time Warner. Do you care? Does the phone you have affect your decision?

Galluping Polls and Pew Surveys…Are these Big Riggs?

A restriction-less 2010 poll set up to pick a destination for Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour saw North Korea steal the top spot… A Facebook poll launched in the summer of 2012 to sponsor a Pitbull concert at the Walmart franchise sent Pitbull to the most remote Walmart store in the U.S Kodiak, Alaska. Do you pay attention to online polls? Have you been influenced by them

2. A 2016 Gallup Poll concluded that Utah was the happiest state in the Union based on ranking well-being, work and community. Texas finished 29th. Could you be happier in another state? Job? Community?

3. Another Gallup Poll found that both men and women were most afraid of snakes and least afraid of the dark. But 27% more women were afraid of mice than men. What probable daily encounters do you fear most? What things do other people fear that you do not?

4. Confidence in the church

Since 1975, confidence in the church as a whole has dropped from 68% to 41% in 2016. What factors might have influence this poll?

5. Eleven former presidents of the United States were affiliated with the Episcopal Church. Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were unaffiliated. Does religious affiliation matter to you? Does it matter to the majority of Americans?

If I opened my doors to anyone in need, who would get in line? First, oh yes, would be the grifters. Money for nothing and nothing for free. Next, the rejected, for sure. Nobody wants them a second time around and so you got ’em and their bad behavior. At the end of the line slouch the young, they never grow old. Couch surfing without gratitude, rudely swaggering in and out, taking everything that can be carried out, returning nothing but calculated promises, and bitching about any impediments. You might think that my musings reflect a bad year with worse people. How about another year with the same type of people?

Why would I keep relationships with those who have rendered themselves useless? Think of it this way: If every home housed a homeless, homelessness would disappear from the headlines. If the destitute turned the wealthy into the impoverished, there goes the wealth gap. Greed was once again put solely into the hands of the desperate, there would be much less for the rich to covet. As for an individual purpose, it is hard to rationalize. But as remedy as to what is wrong with this society, country, and world, you should be able to see the merit. Take from well healed earners and give to undeserving slackers in order to make this a more sustainable world for all. What’s the first step?

This idea has to be law, sermon, and fact. From government to church to education make believers out of the moneyed populace or take money from them. They have no choice. Concern should be given to those who have been taken. A community that has level wealth has level fiscal health. The rapidity of decline in the upper class when grifters, misfits, and young start working in this world (to justify their new found welfare). Think of it. Getting less but paying more. Quality is no longer a requirement, it is only found in museums and historical documents. Showing up is optional. Trust is all but quaint. Lying is expected if not mandatory.

This opinion essay is inspired by my knowledge of the subject and another more extensive opinion essay written by George Monbiot, titled “Take away Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel peace prize. She no longer deserves it”, and published on The Guardian website:

We celebrated when she was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991; when she was finally released from house arrest in 2010; and when she won the general election in 2015. Now, Aung San Suu Kyi has denied the very identity of the people being attacked in 2017, asking the US ambassador not to use the term Rohingya. With the obvious and often explicit purpose of destroying this group, acts of genocide have been practiced more or less continuously by Myanmar’s armed forces since Aung San Suu Kyi became de facto political leader. She possesses one power in abundance: the power to speak out, but she does not. I believe the Nobel committee should retain responsibility for the prizes it awards, and withdraw them if its laureates later violate the principles for which they were recognized.

Aung San Suu Kyi asked the US ambassador not to use the term Rohingya. Really? She has upheld the 1982 Citizenship Law, which denies the Rohingya people within Myanmar’s borders their rights. Seriously? Her government obstructs humanitarian aid, denies well documented evidence, ignores the UN report on the treatment of the Rohingya. Unbelieveable! An abhorrent example: In a well-documented case, Aung San Suu Kyi’s office posted a banner on its Facebook page reading “Fake Rape”.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide describes five acts, any one of which, when “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, amounts to genocide. Myanmar is guilty of these four.

Killing…summary executions of teachers, elders and community leaders

Serious bodily or mental harm…documented mass rape

Destroying conditions of life…destruction of crops and the burning of villages; Malnutrition ravages the Rohingya, afflicting 80,000 children

Prevent births… a woman in labour beaten by soldiers, her baby stamped to death as it was born.

With the obvious and often explicit purpose of destroying this group, acts of genocide have been practiced more or less continuously by Myanmar’s armed forces since Aung San Suu Kyi became de facto political leader. She has blamed the isolated acts of some Rohingya insurgents to justify the mass extermination efforts of Myanmar’s military. In her Nobel lecture, Aung San Suu Kyi remarked: “Wherever suffering is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and embitters and enrages.”

Aung San Suu Kyi ~ “It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.” She has failed to speak out. Excuses for not speaking out include:

jeopardize re-election

armed forces intimidation

keep China happy

Whether out of prejudice or out of fear, she denies to the Rohingya Muslim minority the freedoms she rightly claimed for herself. Her regime excludes – and in some cases, seeks to silence – the very activists who helped to ensure her own rights were recognized.

Nobel committee: Retain responsibility for the prizes you award. You must withdraw the Aung San Suu Kyi award for her failure to act. De facto leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi: Acknowledge the identity of Rohingya people who have lived there for centuries. Myanmar military: Stop executing the Rohingya. Again, Aung San Suu Kyi, speak out against these atrocities. Nobel committee: Change your policy and revoke her award. Public: There is nothing to prevent you from petitioning for the revocation of the Nobel Prize of the de facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, for the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority.